Hello XDA and community. I've compiled a complete walkthrough to root, s-off, and flash a custom rom on your GSM HTC Desire. This guide was created with NOOBS in mind so please follow along.

***This method only works for users with hboot 0.93 and lower. Sorry 1.06 users, but until unrevoked updates, your stuck on stock htc***

To check your hboot, turn off your phone. Hold volume down and press power while continuing to hold volume down. A white screen should load with alot of information on it. The 2nd line will have your hboot version.

***I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU BRICK YOUR DEVICE***

Table of Contents

Step One - Service Provider RUU romsStep Two - Root PreparationsStep Three - How To Root Your DeviceStep Four - How To S-Off Your DeviceStep Five - How To Partition Your Sd CardStep Six - How To Nandroid BackupStep Seven - How To Flash a Custom RomStep Eight - Optional Extras

The 1st thing im going to teach you about is your service providers RUU rom. This is not nessesary for the rooting procedure, but nessesary if you have problems or need to send your phone in for repair. So lets be safe and download it before hand.

STEP ONE - Download Your Providers RUU rom

A RUU rom is the stock rom your provider had preinstalled in your desire. The reason for downloading is just incase you have problems, you can always reflash the RUU back to the factory default. Your providers RUU romwill erase your root, s-off, apps, contacts, sms messages, and call history. The RUU will not touch anything you have saved to your sdcard such as music, photos, or videos.

Now on your phone, goto settings>about phone>software then look for your baseband version and build version. Use that information to find your RUU file here:

Once you have your RUU file downloaded, store it in a safe place on your pc. Now im going to show a video of me flashing my providers stock RUU. You do not need to do this, im only shooting this to showcase to new comers that its easy to erase root and return to your providers stable sense 2.2.

******PLZ NOTE YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PERFORM A RUU FLASH, I ONLY DID ONE TO SHOWCASE HOW EASY IT IS TO REMOVE ROOT ACCESS AND FEATURES ******

Watch this video showcasing how to flash the RUU if you ever need too:

I created part one strickly because I understand how difficult it can be when you want root access but your afraid of the repercussions.

Now that you understand how todo a emergency reflash, lets prepare your phone and computer so they can transmit the root through hboot

STEP TWO - Root Preparations

First things first, download and install HTC sync which can be found at: http://www.htc.com
After its completely installed, open control panel then goto programs and features. Look for HTC sync and uninstall it. But leave the drivers. DO NOT UNINSTALL ANYTHING OTHER THEN HTC SYNC. The drivers are needed to connect your phone in hboot mode. Next, Your going to have to flash a modifed usb driver so you can transmit the root through hboot mode. i was going todo a video for this section but i found this tutorial could showcase what you need todo alot clearer then i could with a video. So just click the following link and continue following along

After youve updated the usb hboot driver, its time to prepare your phone. First thing we are going todo is turn on usb debugging. Goto settings>applications>development>usb debugging and turn this feature on. It allows your phone and pc to have a conversation and exchange information with one another. Next, click your back button so your at settings>applications and make sure unknown sources is also turned on. At this point, you should reset your phone and reset your computer. Now that youve prepared your phone and pc to communicate through hboot mode, your ready to use unrevoked to root your phone

Unrevoked is the program used to flash superuser, busybox, and clockwork recovery into your phone. Once downloaded, hook your phone up to your computer and when it asks you what kind of connection you'd like, click charge only and dont ask me again.

Heres a video to showcase the installation. Just follow along:

After youve successfully rooted your device, youve opened your device to most but not all features your device is capable of doing. You now have to S-off using alpharev to fully unlock the power of android.

STEP FOUR - S-Off Precedure With Alpharev

HTC created a new security feature they have implemented into the majority of there phones which blocks the ability to really tweak the phones internal features like your splash screen, boot animations, changing the size of system partitions, etc. You must create a way to bypass the security system which can be done with alpharev s-off procedure.
First thing were gonna do is download the alpharev hboot reflash utility from: http://alpharev.nl/
Once you have this file downloaded, you have to burn it with an iso burning program or place it on a usb drive. I perfer the disc as i have so many laying around. I Used Magic Iso to burn the boot disc which can be found here http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm
Once you have magiciso installed, all u have to do is open it, then click the "Burn dvd/cd with iso" then click the alpharev iso, then burn it.

Once you have your alpharev s-off disc in hand, you must setup your pc so it reads boot discs before it reads windows on your hard drive. To do this, restart your pc. When your pc restarts, it will have a screen with your manufacturers logo. In one of these corners it will say something like "press F5 for setup." press the required button your specific computer asks for and it will bring your too a menu like this:

Your computer will start the boot sequence from the top of the list. So you want to move your cd/dvd drive above your hdd in the boot list. once youve moved it above your hdd, save the changes and close the setup menu. Below is a video of the S-off precedure starting from where the text ended.

After youve successfully s-offed your device, its time to partition your sdcard.

STEP FIVE - Partitioning Your Sd Card With Gparted

A majority of custom roms today come with a feature called "App2sd". This feature allows movement of most applications to your sd card to save valuable system space which is definately needed for a device with such a small amount of room for applications [131mbs] as the desire. To set this feature up, you must first partition your sd card using a program called "Gparted". You can download this program here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

After youve downloaded the file, you must burn it in the same method as you burned alpharev. Again, use magiciso to burn a boot disc you can use to bootup when you turn on your pc. Follow along with this video:

STEP SIX - Stock Nandroid Backup
After youve successfully partitioned your sd card, youve got to make a stock nandroid backup just incase you have an issue with a rom you decided to try.
Watch this video for instructions:

Now that youve made a backup of your stock rom, your ready to flash a custom rom

STEP SEVEN - Flashing A Custom Rom

Now that your ready to flash a custom rom, you have quite afew choices. But after many months of testing, im going to post my personal favorites of each type.

Second, we have sense hd roms. sense hd roms are roms pulled from the desire hd. There basically the same as sense roms except they give you extra features like flipclock, the porsonalize button, skins, etc. These are my second favorite type of rom. And my personal favorite sense hd rom is Cool Sense Hd which can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=899943

UPDATE- Third, We Have Gingersense roms. Gingersense is a sense hd rom updated to googles gingerbread 2.3.x. So youll have all the greatness of a sense hd rom with the additions of gingerbread like notification settings, a new app drawer etc. These roms are amazing but still in development stages and lack specific features like camera and a proper 3d graphics lib. My personal favorite is Robo's RCMixS which can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=988570

Fourth, we have ASOP roms. These are the stock google roms. They are pritty bare minimum roms but incredible in the speed department. These are my favorite type of rom. And my personal favorite of the bunch is Cyanogen Mod 7 which can be found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=957344

It's up to your personal preference, so go ahead and choose your favorite then continue. Im going to use Cyanogen Mod 7 RC3. Follow the video

Now that you have your custom rom installed, your good 2 go! enoy the power of android. The desire is already a great device but with all the extra youve just setup, its spectacular. There are still extras you can flash if you choose too. Step eight is purely optional.

Basically, extract the downloaded file to your desktop, open it and click android flasher. hook your phone up via usb cable on charge only. click the splashscreen box and begin. it will then ask where the file is. direct it to your file and click ok. it will ask if this is the picture you want. click ok. it will then load the splash into your phone. The odd time you will get a error and it wont flash. If this happens to you, just restart your computer and try again. Also make sure unknown sources is on and usb debugging.

Ive just spent approx 20 hours creating this thread to help all the newcomers to the forum so plz, if this helped you, click the thank you button

Edit> The OP did PM me about my request for PVT4 but as yet its not here so to help others, I shall put it below:

Essential information before rooting

Current Android Software version

Settings>About phone. We need to check if your software is the ARA build (ARA 2.xx.415.x) this is the Arab build

Hboot version, PVT and Erase size.

Boot into Hboot (from off, hold volume down and press power)
Make a note of your Hboot version - Must be lower than 1.06
Make a note of your PVT version. If it is PVT4 you must now check if the erase size is 40,000
"Download Terminal emulator" from the market and open it.
Type "cat /proc/mtd" and press enter. It will return results of either 20,000 or 40,000

The reason we need to know the above:

The ARA build dictates you use unrevoked 3.32 (3.21 is best for anything else)

If erase size is 40,000 Amon RA 2.0.1 is better as Clockworkmod recovery supplied with Unrevoked does not work.

To select a recovery different to clockworkmod in unrevoked, before connecting the phone, go to File > Custom recovery

Unfortunately, not so noob proof for me...since step four gives me an error. I'm using Alpharev's ISO, burned on a cd. Then booting, trying to S-OFF my rooted stock ROM. Then when I see "pushing necessary files to phone" on the screen of my pc, it doesn't go beyond that point.

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